Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
“Now the cow’s status has changed. They’re no longer family members but seen as pieces of meat.”
A nice story from the LA Times of an elderly farm couple from Korea and their attachment to an old ox.
“This cow is better than a human. When it dies, I’ll be its chief mourner — and I’ll follow. I’m alive because of this cow.”
Hot on the heels of of the illustrated Arabic botanical treatise I pointed to a few days ago comes a wonderful online exhibition about food, cooking and eating in medieval times from the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. Some great pictures of agrobiodiversity: crops and livestock, and their methods of preparation and presentation at the table. Via.
Actually, I didn’t even know there was a Plant Conservation Day. BCGI put me on to it. And it does seem to be a celebration very much focused on botanic gardens. But why shouldn’t genebanks and heirloom gardeners and others interested in agrobiodiversity get in on the act too? We’ve got a couple of months to think up things to do…
There’s only one rum that can put Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) on its label, apparently. It is Martinique’s Rhum Agricole, and it has a fascinating history. Via.
Ayahuasca is the ethnomedicinal case study. First described scientifically in the 1950s by the pioneering ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes of Harvard, it is a complex phychoactive decoction used in shamanistic ritual, whose preparation epitomizes the sophisticated botanical knowledge of Amazonian Amerindians. Schultes disciple and ethnobotanical pin-up boy Wade Davis has a great TED talk about it. I bring all this up because of a short article in Portland’s Mail Tribune, of all places, “Southern Oregon’s News Source.” It seems the local chapter of the Brazil-based Church of the Holy Light of the Queen has just been allowed by the federal court to go ahead and brew up some “Daime tea,” which is another name for ayahuasca. Strictly for sacramental purposes, you understand. But I like the cut of that judge’s jib.
